News Briefs

CNA Staff, Nov 6, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- House Republicans scored an upset victory this week in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, as a pro-life, Latino candidate unseated the Democratic incumbent and former HHS secretary who served in Bill Clinton’s administration.

Maria Salazar, a Cuban-American journalist endorsed by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, has been declared the victor in Florida’s 27th congressional district race. As of Friday afternoon, she was leading Democratic Rep. Donna Shalala by more than 9,000 votes.

The Cook Political Report predicted Salazar’s race to be a “likely Democratic” victory. Cook rated the district D+5—or five percentage points more Democratic than the U.S. average district.

According to a candidate questionnaire circulated by the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, Salazar said she opposed taxpayer funding of abortions; she gave no response on repealing the death penalty.

Salazar also supported limiting the rate on consumer credit loans to 36%, preserving the state option to expand Medicaid in the future, universal background checks for guns, a pathway to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants, and funding renewable energy.

Salazar’s victory follows a trend of mostly unexpected Republican success among Latino voters in the general election. President Donald Trump carried the state by more than 300,000 votes as of Friday afternoon. The neighboring 26th congressional district of Southwest Florida also flipped to Republican.

The 27th District includes Miami Beach, Little Havana, and other portions of Miami-Dade County, is more than 70% Hispanic, according to Ballotpedia.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Miami-Dade County by nearly 30 points. However, Democratic nominee and current leader in the presidential race Joe Biden was winning the county by only seven points as of Friday afternoon, according to AP.

Born in Miami’s Little Havana to Cuban emigrants, Salazar graduated from the University of Miami and received a master’s in public administration from Harvard University.

Her victory on Tuesday is one of several House districts that were flipped from Democratic to Republican by GOP women candidates. Republicans have flipped eight House seats so far, for a net gain of six, and women endorsed by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund won eight of those races.

In addition, the group says that 11 Republican pro-life incumbents won their races, and that the number of pro-life women in the House has more than doubled.

While Salazar’s website does not list abortion among her issues, she did oppose taxpayer funding of abortion in her questionnaire for the state’s Catholic bishops conference, and ran on “pro-life values” in 2018, according to the University of Miami student newspaper.

In 2018, Salazar lost to Shalala by more than 15,000 votes. Shalala served as the Secretary of Health and Human Services under President Bill Clinton.

In 1995 and 1996, Shalala had to take responsibility amid criticism that the Clinton administration’s pick for surgeon general, Dr. Henry Foster, had performed far more abortions than had initially been reported.

Shalala also defended the administration’s position in support of partial-birth abortion as “emergency medicine” and something that “ought to be there to save a woman’s health or to save her life.”

In Congress, she cosponsored legislation to roll back the Trump administration’s religious exemption granted to the Little Sisters of the Poor and others who opposed the HHS contraceptive mandate. She also supported legislation to thwart some state regulations of abortions, as well as to open up coverage of abortions in taxpayer-funded Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP programs.

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Denver Newsroom, Nov 6, 2020 / 03:02 pm (CNA).-  

The Vatican is set to release next week a comprehensive report of the misdeeds of disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who last year was laicized for serial sexual abuse of both minors and adults.

One clerical abuse survivor and advocate told CNA that while it will be hard to read the McCarrick Report next week, she plans to read it all.

“All Catholics will be grieving. I’m in a place of grief myself right now, just anticipating. I know it’s going to be very, very hard,” Teresa Pitt Green, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse by priests, told CNA.

“No matter what is in the report, I will go through a depth of grief that is as deep as anything I went through in recovery. Because that’s what being triggered is, and this report will put me and a lot of survivors through hell…I guarantee that survivors are already in profound grief. We’re going to have to walk through it all again, and so are all Catholics, not just survivors.”

The expected report comes after a Vatican review of documents and witness accounts spanning McCarrick’s 40-year episcopal career, after he was accused of serial sexual crimes related to minors and seminarians in 2018.

The Vatican confirmed Nov. 6 that the report would be released the following week, on Nov. 10 at 2pm Rome time.

Green works to bring healing dialogue to the Church through her organization, Spirit Fire.

She said although she fully believes the truth about McCarrick ought to come out, and that the report must be truthful, she also expects that “everyone is going to be in profound grief.”

“Spirit Fire survivors will continue to engage in healing friendships, person to person, with a core of lay ministers and clergy who integrate our survivor recovery experience into healing the whole Church,” she said.

“Maybe the report will break through the cynicism and fear and complacency that enables abuse.”

According to the Vatican, the McCarrick report’s scope will encompass the years 1930-2017— virtually McCarrick’s entire lifespan.

Green said she hopes reading the full report “and going through the hell of it” will enable her to walk with other survivors of abuse who want to read the report as well.

“I’m sure the report will break my heart and the hearts of many. It will hurt like hell because these are the ravages of sin,” Green commented.

She said she has already heard from many survivors who are concerned and worried about what the report might contain. She plans to listen to and accompany them.

“We must remember that the most vile corruption in human institutions has no bearing on God. Even if it hurts so much that you recoil from the Church, run without fear to God, because Jesus is victor,” she said.

“I live for that truth. I survived because of it and I live to bring it to others. Even with the report coming out, whether it’s great or terrible, I know that God is the victor in this. It will hurt, it will be awful; I am concerned about people who are close to suicide already because of COVID. But I know that we heal because Jesus is the victor.”

Reports of McCarrick’s history of sexual abuse were made public in June 2018, when the Archdiocese of New York announced that a sexual abuse allegation against the then-retired McCarrick, received in 2017, was “credible and substantiated.”

McCarrick was a priest and auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of New York, before he became in 1981 the Bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, then Archbishop of Newark, and then Archbishop of Washington, DC, where he retired in 2006.

He became a cardinal in 2001, but resigned from the College of Cardinals after it emerged that he had been credibly accused of sexually assaulting a minor. Allegations of serial sexual abuse of minors, seminarians, and priests soon followed, and McCarrick was laicized in February 2019.

The report is expect to answer questions about how McCarrick rose through the ecclesiastical ranks despite apparently widespread rumors of sexual misconduct over the years, and could also address McCarrick’s financial dealings with the Vatican and other senior churchmen, and his reputation for gift-giving and participation in so-called “envelope culture” at the Vatican.

The report could implicate those who knew about McCarrick’s abuse before 2017. There is evidence that the Vatican received as early as 2000, when McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Washington, a complaint of McCarrick sharing a bed with seminarians.

One official who has seen the report described it to CNA as “lengthy.”

“The version I saw was more than 600 pages,” the official told CNA. “I don’t know if it will all go out in the end, or answer everyone’s questions, but it says a lot.”

One source close to the Washington archdiocesan chancery told CNA that “a roomful of boxes” had been sent to Rome as part of the document review.

The U.S. bishops are set to convene their Fall General Assembly on Nov. 16. The annual gathering, usually held in Baltimore, will take place online this year due to the coronavirus.

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CNA Staff, Nov 6, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The Fall General Assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops will be held in two live-streamed sessions on November 16 and 17.

The meeting is set to commence six days after the long-awaited release of the Vatican’s investigation into disgraced former archbishop Theodore McCarrick. The report is set to be released almost exactly one year after Cardinal Sean O’Malley told the USCCB’s 2019 fall meeting that the report would be released “soon.” 

The bishops will also learn the results of the committee chairman elections, and hear addresses from the apostolic nuncio and the National Review Board.

Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, who was elected president of the USCCB at last fall’s assembly, will give his first address as the conference’s president, after the spring general assembly, scheduled to occur in June, was canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

According to the USCCB, the meeting will “include dialogue by the bishops on a pastoral response to the COVID-19 pandemic and a pastoral response to racism.” Additionally, the bishops will vote on the strategic priorities of the 2021-2024 Strategic Plan, the renewal of the Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, and the budget for the upcoming year. 

Due to the pandemic and the virtual nature of this year’s assembly, the bishops were provided with mail-in ballots to vote in the upcoming conference election. Typically, the votes would occur at the assembly, in-person. 

The bishops will be voting for the chairmen-elect of seven committees: Priorities and Plans, Catholic Education, Communications, Cultural Diversity in the Church, Doctrine, National Collections, and Pro-Life Activities. 

The winners of these elections will serve one year as “chairman-elect” before they take over as chairman at the 2021 Fall General Assembly. Once elevated to chairman, the bishop will serve in that role for a three-year term. 

The bishops will also vote for a chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty, which is currently being led by acting chairman Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami. 

At the Fall 2019 General Assembly, Wenski tied a vote with Bishop George Murry, S.J. of Youngstown following the resignation of Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville due to medical reasons. Murry was older than Wenski, and was declared the victor of that election. 

The position of chairman became vacant once again following Murray’s death on June 5 after a relapse of leukemia. Wenski agreed to assume the role on an acting basis. 

The bishops will also be voting for a new general secretary, who will serve a five-year term. 

The current general secretary is Monsignor Brian Bransfield, a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Also up for election will be new board members of Catholic Relief Services. 

The results of the election will be announced during the virtual assembly.

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Washington D.C., Nov 6, 2020 / 12:15 pm (CNA).- As ballots are still being counted to determine key House races, Democrats are projected to hold control of the chamber—but by a smaller margin. The shift could impact the Democrats’ priorities in the coming years.

As of Friday afternoon, ABC News had projected Democrats with 214 House seats and Republicans with 202.

House Republicans had gained a net total of six seats in the House and are looking to flip several more, in states such as New York, Iowa, and California where districts are either still counting ballots or may hold a recount. While Republicans had flipped eight seats, Democrats flipped two in Raleigh and Greensboro, North Carolina.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) survived his re-election bid after he switched parties in 2019 and opposed the House impeachment of President Trump. He ended up signing a pro-life House petition on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection bill.

Pro-life women candidates were responsible for much of the Republican gain on Tuesday. The number of pro-life women in the House has now “more than doubled,” said Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for the Susan B. Anthony List, on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly on Thursday. The group’s 501(c)(4) had endorsed a number of women for 2020 House races.

Maria Elvira Salazar won in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Ashley Hinson flipped a district in Northeast Iowa, Yvette Herrell unseated a Democratic incumbent in Southern New Mexico, Nancy Mace won in coastal South Carolina, and Michelle Fischbach defeated Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) in Western Minnesota.

Peterson was known as a sometimes “pro-life Democrat” and was endorsed by Democrats for Life of America, although Susan B. Anthony List says his record was mixed.

Ballots are still being counted in other races around the country, and other GOP women candidates could continue to flip districts red. Mariannette Miller-Meeks holds a narrow lead of several hundred votes in Iowa’s second district, where a recount is expected. Claudia Tenney is ahead in New York’s 22nd district race.

As part of its overall campaign with Women Speak Out PAC, Susan B. Anthony List spent $52 million to target more than 8 million voters in 10 battleground states, knocking on doors, making phone calls, and running digital ads.

“I think this is a repudiation of Speaker Pelosi’s radical pro-abortion agenda,” Quigley told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly of the House gains. “Pro-life is a winning issue.”

The Republican gain comes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had predicted a double-digit gain of seats for House Democrats as part of an electoral sweep.

Now, with a slimmer majority, Democrats might reconsider some of their policy priorities—especially if Republicans hold on to control of the Senate.

As of Friday morning, Republicans were poised to hold 50 seats in the chamber with two runoff races in Georgia expected in January to determine ultimate control.

If Democrats were to expand their House majority and gain control of the Senate, along with winning the White House, a number of pro-abortion and pro-LGBT policies were expected to be considered. With a clear Democratic majority, the Senate would possibly be able to abolish the filibuster, requiring only a 50-vote majority to pass legislation. The chamber would also be able to move to expand the Supreme Court and negate any perceived Republican advantage there.

Now, with a more competitive House and a possible Republican Senate, that landscape may be altered. Speaker Pelosi and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had both promised to repeal the Hyde Amendment and allow for taxpayer funding of elective abortions, but that measure might be much harder to pass through a Republican Senate.

Other more-controversial measures such as court-packing might now be dead-on-arrival, said National Review senior editor Rammesh Ponnuru on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly.

Pro-lifers, he said, “will be in striking distance” of a House majority and could obtain it by 2022.

Tuesday’s results also foreshadow a possible fight amongst House Democrats over policy priorities and messaging for the next two years—as well as a potential challenge to Speaker Pelosi’s leadership.

In a call with fellow House Democrats on Thursday, Pelosi reportedly insisted that Democrats had won and were given a “mandate” by voters. “We didn’t win every battle, but we won the war,” she said.

However, some Democrats on the call emphasized that the party must moderate its message. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) who represents a suburban district rated R+6 by the Cook Report and who is projected to survive her first re-election battle, insisted that the party change its tone especially on emphasizing issues such as “socialism” and “defund the police.”

Other young progressive congresswomen, however, said that the party need not abandon liberal priorities such as Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) tweeted on Friday that liberal policies were not the problem for Democrats.

Thursday’s call—and the ensuing debate—is a snapshot of a possible conflict among House Democrats in the next two years.

The issue of abortion is wrapped up in this fight. Proposals for Medicare-for-All would cover elective abortions in taxpayer-funded plans. Progressive House Democrats such as Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) have led efforts in recent years to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bars taxpayer funding of elective abortions in health care appropriations bills.

The Equality Act, which the House passed in 2019, would set up sexual orientation and gender identity as protected legal classes; critics have said that the bill would infringe on the religious freedom of individuals and groups opposed to the LGBT agenda, and could possibly force health care workers to participate in abortions.

Other House races in doubt on Friday include heavily-Catholic districts in New York. Republicans could gain the state’s first and third districts on Long Island and Staten Island, while Catholic Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) could survive a challenge in his district on Long Island’s north shore. Suozzi has had an 100% rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL in the most recent Congress.

Suozzi helped bring Bishop Robert Barron to Capitol Hill last year to speak to legislators. He called Barron “a remarkable man who has inspired me and my wife and my family for many years.”

In Pennsylvania’s 17th district in the Pittsburgh suburbs, Catholic Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) is expected to win re-election over a Catholic Republican challenger, Sean Parnell. Lamb said in 2018 that on abortion, Catholics “believe that life begins at conception,” but “as a matter of separation of church and state, I think a woman has the right to choose under the law.” He said he would vote against a 20-week abortion ban.
 

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